Kurt Helin

The NBA players union meeting — one that could end up helping decide the fate of the NBA season — is going on as of 9 a.m. Monday morning in New York. Here’s where things stand as the meeting starts: • Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Russell Westbrook and a number of NBA stars and players…

Another week, another round of charity game highlights featuring Kevin Durant and friends. Josh Howard hosted a charity game in Dallas and the fans were treated to some high flying plays and displays of athleticism. As is a charity game tradition, they were not treated to any defense. Still, this is what we have for…

When we were talking about Boston needing a veteran backup point guard for Rajon Rondo, this is not exactly what we had in mind. Allen Iverson — out of the NBA last season but trying to get back in — is interested in playing for the Celtics, his manger Gary Moore told the Boston Globe (via…

This Powerpoint presentation above is the latest in the NBA’s PR blitz that included the odd, stiff answers of Adam Silver on twitter, releasing their full proposal to the USA Today and David Stern talking to media outlets. The league is getting its message out there and letting everyone know exactly what their offer is.…

What would be the one thing that could make the situation for the NBA union worse? What one person could find a way to take a terrible situation and turn it into an unmitigated disaster? Hello Isiah Thomas. From rumormonger Peter Vecsey at the New York Post (so please consume this with liberal amounts of salt)…

There is nothing in the basketball blogosphere like The Basketball Jones. They are flat out brilliant. They get it. And so for our Friday Night Video tonight features a recent post of theirs that had me laughing. (The fact I’ll see them in the next few days in LA had nothing to do with it.…

It’s just the first step — and getting past the first step can lead to controversy. The list of nominees for the 2012 class of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame have been announced. It’s an impressive group of people from all across the hoops spectrum (remember, the Hall of Fame is the entire sport,…

Well, at least we won’t have to wait long for Armageddon. The NBA players’ union team representatives are set to meet in New York at 9 a.m. Monday morning, according to a tweet from Jerry Zgoda of the Star-Tribune (talking about Wolves rep Anthony Tolliver). Derek Fisher, Billy Hunter and union leadership will present David…

It will not be until the first part of next week that we see officially how the players will respond to the latest ultimatum from David Stern and the owners. But Thursday night union president Derek Fisher seemed hesitant about it, and as Friday wore on more and more players and owners seemed to turn…

This week marked the 20th anniversary of Magic Johnson announcing he was retiring from the NBA because he had HIV. It was as shocking a moment as there has been in sports. But it was also a turning point for our culture — Magic changed the face and perception of HIV and AIDS. People talked…

Among the dramas coming next season — whenever there is a next season — surrounds Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. Because there was not enough drama in Miami already. Spoelstra is entering the last year of his contract. With Pat Riley hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles (just ask Stan Van Gundy) there…

UPDATE 4:36 pm: We now have confirmation on this. The changes to the D-League are among things the owners want, but it is all part of what union chief Billy Hunter described as the “B-List” issues, along with draft age limit changes (there are reports the owners want to raise it from 19 to 20)…

Take a guy who grew up on the warm and diverse streets of Los Angeles then drop him in Moscow for a few months and you have the making of an interesting story. Or a terrible sitcom. That’s what happened to Austin Daye, the Pistons forward signed a two-month deal to play with Moscow’s BC…

What would we do without Ron Artest, er, Metta World Peace to lighten the mood. Amidst the ultimatums and likely refusal by players to accept that deal, World Peace went on the Dan Patrick Show Friday and when the host asked him if he had a backup name in mind if his name change had…

Of all the owners, it would have been easiest for James Dolan to make it to the NBA labor negotiations last week. He owns the Knicks, he’s on the negotiating committee for the owners, he’s right there in Manhattan, he could just drop in a whole lot easier than Spurs owner Peter Holt. Yet Dolan…

Agents are leading the charge against the latest offer from the NBA owners — agents are at the heart of decertification efforts, they are telling their clients not to take this deal. Agents are in one sense looking out for their clients’ interest, although everything is intertwined — the more money the players make, the…

Sundiata Gaines is a bit of an NBA cult hero for his game winning shot in Utah. He’s one of those guys who has fought hard (and won fans) the past few seasons as he tried to find stable footing in the NBA. He was last with the Nets and the team may pick up…

Let’s be honest about what you really like — trades and teams full of stars. You like seeing basketball, too, which makes the new offer from NBA owners appealing to fans. Because it means 72 games and a full playoffs, basically a normal season. I want to see it in place for the same reasons.…

Nuggets shot blocking machine Chris Andersen is not your typical NBA player — in a league with inked-up players, the Birdman’s tattoos turn your head. And blind you. So we should have guessed that when SLAM magazine asked him what he was up to this summer (at a Converse event), the response was going to…

Here’s the real hook for players with a season that starts Dec. 15 — they lose essentially only one paycheck. Their salaries in a shortened season are pro-rated by games played, a 72 game season would mean 10 fewer games than normal (a 12 percent loss). That is basically a little more than one missed…

The real question is how the sides are going to handle it if — more likely when — the players reject the latest offer from David Stern and the owners. We are starting to learn more about that offer, and basically it is minor changes from the offer the players rejected last weekend. It doesn’t…

They have the signatures. A band of agents has had the more than 130 signatures needed from players to request the decertification of the union for most of this week, but they sat on it out of respect for the ongoing negotiations. After watching the outcome of another round of talks, those agents and players…

One week later, after nearly 23 hours of talks over two days, we are back almost in the same place we were last weekend, save that the consequences seem more dire. Thursday night David Stern and the owners presented a new take-it-or-leave-it proposal to the union (the details of which we have few of yet but…

From the day that we see Billy Hunter and David Stern shake hands, it’s going to take at least 30 days to get the NBA regular season started. Which means solve it soon and we can still have hoops on Christmas. But how many games in the regular season would we see? The NBA will…

Former NBA center Shawn Bradley is 7’6” — he loves to ride a bicycle with his family but he needed one custom made to fit him. He got a special frame made that is 50 percent larger than the one on that bike you own. So if you are six-foot tall Joshua Carter, how do…